Christian Bale Names The 1 Book Actors Should Read Before Playing Donald Trump

The Oscar nominee asked reporters at the Berlin Film Festival on Monday if they remembered the instructional “For Dummies” series of books.

“You’d start with that, wouldn’t you? “Dictatorship for Dummies.” That’d be the beginning,” quipped Bale, a spoof book joke he’s made before.

Bale also appeared to reject the idea he might portray Trump in the future, saying “there’d be far better people” to take on the role.

Bale, nominated in the Best Actor category at the 2019 Academy Awards for his portrayal of former Vice President Dick Cheney in the movie “Vice,” last month said Trump’s “enormous ego” made him likely to be “far less dangerous” than Cheney was during his time in President George W. Bush’s administration.

He further compared Trump and Cheney during a press conference in the German capital. Cheney was “entirely different from Trump” because he was “always terrible at retail politics and didn’t like it at all,” Bale explained. But retail politics “seems to be the only thing” that Trump likes, he added.